India somehow constantly rivets and inspires me, and I feel very relieved to have come from this country which has a very ‘lifeist’ approach to living fully, no matter what one has or doesn’t have. – Mira Nair
You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us – brown people – were looked at as the ‘Others.’ – Mira Nair
I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it’s subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves. – Mira Nair
I’ve been able to look at the world differently from three continents practically. I’ve always lived between India and the U.S. When I married Mahmood I became a daughter-in-law of Africa. That really changed my worldview. I can see it from so many perspectives. – Mira Nair
Either you’re this, or you’re that: either you’re – if you’re a Pakistani, you’re a terrorist; if you’re an American, you might be a militarist. Those kind of prisms that we see each other through are really stultifying, and they don’t often show the complexity and the incredible warmth and encompassing of the world. – Mira Nair
I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power – like, you know, running the country. Which is a thought that continues to give Americans indigestion… Direction is about having a vision, but the practice of being a director is a con game – a confidence game. – Mira Nair
I don’t think boldness should be associated with showing off skin. It’s not the basis of boldness. – Mira Nair
In Uganda, I am surrounded, unfortunately, by evangelicals; I can’t bear it. Every night I hear the chants of Baptists urging people to be born again. – Mira Nair
I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. They teach us how to see the world in that sense. They are without artifice; they see it for what it is. I am drawn to that ruthless honesty. – Mira Nair
A lot of us feel that we are against the war; we are against profiling and are against what is happening. We are tired of war in every manifestation. American people do not all believe in what the government has been doing. – Mira Nair
Once 9/11 happened, people who looked like me and whose children looked like us and whose husbands looked of a community, really were made to feel quite the other, and I thought that was impossible in a city like New York but I myself was witness to that. – Mira Nair
I am actually a resident of three worlds – of America, of India, and of Africa. I live in Uganda most of the year. It’s extraordinary to have that worldview that is an expansive one rather than just looking at the world from where you sit. – Mira Nair
There’s nothing universal about Indian families except that the family itself is deeply important across the country. It’s sort of the fabric and anchor of our country. – Mira Nair
I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work. – Mira Nair
I am at home in many cultures. I live actively in three continents and I’ve done that for most of my life, so I just make films as I see the world, and that happens to speak to people. I do things that I want to do. – Mira Nair
Marriage of attraction is a gamble anyway, so you might as well marry into a family that is similar to your own, and make that much less of an adjustment. But the ‘love marriage’, as it is called, is equally common in India now. But it would be interesting to do a comparison of what would work better. Marriage is hard work, and it is a gamble. – Mira Nair
I think there’s a level of ignorance, when, in the callowness of youth, you imagine that you are inventing the world for the first time. You imagine that your parents don’t know what it feels like to fall in love. – Mira Nair
We all know the power of film; we all know there’s almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do. – Mira Nair
Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn’t really exist in a Hollywood game. – Mira Nair
I’m a self-taught landscape gardener; it’s a real passion of mine. It’s what I do in my spare time because trees don’t ask questions! – Mira Nair